No matter what obstacles we meet in life there’s always a way around them, or if you’re bold enough you can always steamroll your way through those obstacles!

Take this lady from northeast China. She has no arms and yet she learned how to work with what she has to take care of herself and her family. With some of the tasks she does she’s even better with her feet than some people are with their hands!

Most of you aren’t in her situation, but maybe you feel like you’re “handicapped,” especially if you aren’t that experienced with internet marketing. If you’re doing the Thirty Day Challenge, maybe you haven’t yet made your sale or received much traffic (you’re definitely not alone!) or are losing faith in yourself. If this remarkable woman can find a way around her physical shortcomings and successfully raise a family, what the hell is our excuse?

And while I’m at it, I want to show you a smaller friend who beats the odds. Now I’m not an insect person, but the bumblebee is up there as one of my favourite insects. According to simple aerodynamics a bumblebee cannot fly, but it does so anyway, which has been the seed of legends and stories.

For buzzing about regardless of what classical aerodynamics suggests, I am officially declaring the bumblebee as the official mascot of Life Conquest.

Technorati Tags: Motivation, Inspiration, Bumblebee, Aerodynamics, Video

… from a blog which is not affiliated with the 30 Day Challenge.

This is one of the reasons why I love internet marketing: your blog or website works and earns while you’re not around, even when you sleep. The other reason is that I can work on said blog or website in nothing but my underwear and a T-shirt.

This not only increases my August earnings to over $60, but I’ve hit my minimum payout for this unnamed affiliate program and should be expecting a $120 cheque in the mail in 2-3 weeks! This is my second cheque from online wheeling and dealing and it’s over four times bigger than the last one! I really, really, really, really, really hope that I keep getting cheques (sorry, I’m Canadian) in the mail each month, and I’m not just getting lucky. The thing is, traffic hasn’t increased much in the past few months, but I’m making more money. (Note that my 30DC goal is to make $100 solely from the 30DC, so this doesn’t count towards it.)

I’m earning more money with my other blog projects that I’ve put on the back burner since starting the 30 Day Challenge. It’s too early to say I’m disappointed in the 30 Day Challenge, because we’re just starting to get into the meat and potatoes of it.

But not everybody has been pleased with the way the 30 Day Challenge. Mark at 45n5 criticized the challenge for using parasite SEO and not really working to create something sustainable. I agree with him that what we’ve done so far isn’t really sustainable, but we’ve just started, and Ed has mentioned that there are still more things to do. Mark suggests to “Do what they do, not what they say,” but I think we are building up to what they really do, which is create and sell (or get others to sell) your own info product.

I’m going to chug along with the 30 Day Challenge, and if I don’t end up making anything, I’ve only lost a little time.

Technorati Tags: TDC, 30DC, Thirty Day Challenge, 30 Day Challenge, Parasite SEO, Online Earnings, Internet Income, Making Money Online, Making Money While You Sleep, Tumblr, Tumblelogs, Tumbleweed, Tumblespam,

Just a few hours ago, I posted on my first Tumblr blog, marking the end of the strategic phase and the beginning of the tactical phase. We’ve laid the plans as per Sun Tzu’s Art of War, and now we wage war!

It is a battle against ourselves, against laziness and lameness, and tap into our potential. It is a battle against the internet, an unforgiving environment where you will find some of the most unsavory characters that have ever traversed the web. It is a battle against all odds to reach our goals before the month’s end.

I’m all open. All out on the internet now. I’m still finishing up my last two tumblelogs. I’ve submitted my completed tumblelogs to a whole slew of social bookmarking websites, not necessarily to get traffic, although that would be a bonus, but to get Google to notice my blogs and rank them quickly.

The tumblelog-building process has been enjoyable to say the least. My original plan of 2-3 posts ended up being 3-5 posts. I discovered that I could easily add video content which would complement and add much more value than just my text and odd picture. I also sprinkled affiliate links here and there. One potentially “killer” keyword phrase has about 34 000 results, but 400 daily searches according to GTrends. If I can even hit the top 10 I’m sure I could get a nice juicy slice of that traffic.

I also noticed that I’m probably going to have some friendly competition with fellow 30DC participants in a couple of my niches. I hope they can settle with being #10 as I steal 1st place on the SERPs. :p

Today is a good day, and if I get ranked and start getting some traffic, today will be quite nice.

And if I make my first sale, today will be super awesome.

Technorati Tags: 30DC, TDC, Thirty Day Challenge, 30 Day Challenge, Tumblr, Affiliate Marketing, ClickBank, GTrends, Google, Genghis Khan, Sun Tzu, Art of War

Today is the day I’ve been waiting for since Day 1 of the 30 Day Challenge. I’ve been hanging on for so long for this. Ed said this week we’d be moving into high gear, but I really think (hope) it’s going to start today. But all this waiting had me thinking…

The idea is to make your first $10 in 30 days. For the first eight days, we’ve just done research. This is crucial, but really doesn’t take that much time once you know how to do it. The hardest part is coming up with the ideas, even though you can literally find ideas anywhere.

So, we’re expected to make $10 in 30 (actually 31) days, but we’ve already spent 8 days, over a quarter of the challenge, on research. We haven’t put out a product, we haven’t set up any websites or blogs. We’ve just done research. And now that we know how to do it, we can do it even faster next time. Imagine if we already knew how to do market research, we could zip through it in a full weekend or less, depending how easy it is for us to generate ideas.

This really only gives us 23 days to reach our 30DC goals after market research, and even less if we don’t move on to the “traffic phase” tomorrow!

When I start class again in September, I’ll already be working on testing and driving traffic.

This begs me to ask the question, how fast could you complete the 30 Day Challenge if you knew what you were doing from Day 1? I think the only limit would be anything that’s time sensitive, like testing traffic over a few days.

As I’ve briefly mentioned before, if you could make $10 in a month being taught every step of the way, could you repeat it on your own the next month? Could you make that same amount of money in less time? Could you continue to work on your niches next month and triple your profit? Could you work in several niches concurrently and generate even more money? I think this is where the true power of the 30 Day Challenge lies.

Technorati Tags: 30 Day Challenge, Thirty Day Challenge, TDC, 30DC, Internet Marketing

For those who don’t know, the 30 Day Challenge (30DC) is an annual internet-wide challenge to earn your first dollar on the internet. This year, however, the challenge is to earn your first $10 on the internet. It’s open to anyone and everyone, free of charge. I recommend all three* of my blog readers to sign up for the 30 Day Challenge, as it’s going to take place in the month of August. If you’ve never made a dollar on the internet in your life, you will be shown, step-by-step, how to start earning money on the internet. If you’re a veteran internet marketer, Ed Dale (who is spearheading the 30DC) says there are things they are going to cover that will “blow you away.”

This year is different, not only because they’ve upped the challenge from $1 to $10 (of course, you can set whatever goal you wish!) but also because you will not have to spend a cent to get started. In previous challenges, you would pay for things like PPC advertising to get traffic. This year, everything will be completely free. This year is going to be “completely different,” they say. I’m thinking most likely that it will focus on using Web 2.0-oriented techniques to drive traffic and get sales, but I don’t really know much about it as they’re still setting it up for Day 1.

Seriously, you have absolutely nothing to lose except some time. And the 30DC is going to lay it out step-by-step for you. Those running it and the participants are also a very supportive group and just a great group of people. I can easily hit that $10 mark, so I’m aiming for $100 by the end of August. I’ll keep you updated!

30 Day Challenge

*Nobody reads this blog.

I’ve made over $100 online since I started getting “serious” (not really) about internet marketing eight months ago. Pretty pathetic by most internet marketers’ standards, but I earned it. It’s mine. Well, sort of. As I stated in an earlier post, I just recently hit the minimum payout for a sponsor (actually, CCBill). I got the cheque in the mail today. After processing fees, it came out to $25.78 USD. After exchanging the currency it came out to… a little over $25.78 CDN.

Suffice to say, I was fucking excited. Sure, I could’ve made that much in a couple hours at a menial job, but where’s the fun in that? Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture in the style of Shoemoney. Actually, I didn’t forget. I decided not to because I would probably embarrass myself if I posted it! Still, even if it were a $1.00 cheque I would’ve been just as excited getting it. I felt even more excited than when I made my first sale. I was actually holding the money in my hands. Great feeling!

This post was inspired by a guy who is hell bent on making money online - even if it puts him on the street. On one of the internet marketing forums I frequent, there’s this guy who is desperate to make money online. He pleads for advice, usually ignores the advice he’s given, and then pleads for more advice. What is he trying to do? He’s looking for something that will guarantee profits. There is nothing that will guarantee you anything in this business, and only those who will profit from the advice they give you will tell you otherwise.

You know what worries me about this guy? He’s quick to buy suggested products, pay for futile AdWords campaigns for sites that he has to set up on a free host because he has so little spare money. According to him, he needs to desperately get enough money to pay the rent.

Now hold on a damn minute! This guy is trying to muster a few hundred dollars in less than a month so he can pay his rent? Many internet marketers make this money in their sleep, but this guy is just getting started in this business. I’m not exactly an IM hotshot but I know that this is NOT the way to go about making money online. The only people who are going to make money are Google, AdSense publishers (if he’s using the Content Network), and e-book peddlers who hold the secret to online wealth.

I would never suggest to someone barely hanging on to put what little money they have in the stock market. The stock market is a bit different from internet marketing, but AdWords, hosting, buying traffic, etc. are all investments. And at this point, if you’re barely scraping by, they’re risky investments.

So how do you start making money online if you have none? The easiest way to get started is by blogging. I set up my free hosted blogs on Blogger. You could also use WordPress. I have no experience with WordPress hosting, but their blogging software, which I’m using here, is great. But Blogger is probably easier to use if you’re new to blogging.

Pick a niche for your blog. There are different ways you can find a niche. They’re everywhere. I’d personally use a combination of the keyword tool at SEO Tools or SEO Book, search results, maybe ClickBank or another affiliate marketplace to see what’s selling in different niches, AdWords keyword tool to see advertiser competition. Note, you are not using AdWords, just using the tool so you can gauge how popular or competitive a certain niche is. You can also get some idea of the cost of different keywords.

Update your blog daily. This one hasn’t been updated every day, but I’m not expecting to make much from it. You can and should make more than one. Use some SEO techniques on your blog so you can rank high on the search engines. SE traffic is some of the highest quality traffic you can get. And it’s free.

Promote your blog. Submit it to blog directories. Build Hubs and Squidoo lenses. Make link trades with other blogs. Put your blog in your signature on forums you frequent (if it’s allowed). Carefully spread your links on Google, MSN, and Yahoo! Groups if you can wade through the spam. Never spam your blog and avoid making it even look like you’re spamming your blog at all costs. Submit your blog or blog articles to social bookmarking websites. I put up a list of them a few days ago. Put your blog in your email signature. Depending on your niche, you could find many other ways to promote your blog. Is it a gardening blog? Try answering a gardening question on something like Yahoo! Answers and link back to your blog or a blog post containing relevant information about the question! Be creative, but avoid spamming!

Monetize your blog. Place AdSense ads on it. Plug affiliate products in your posts, but don’t be a complete affiliate whore about it.

Keep updating your blog. You don’t have to update it daily, forever. But the more you update it, the better.

As people visit your blog you will get clicks on your AdSense ads and make money. AdSense earnings are a function of traffic so the more traffic you bring, the more money you should make. Affiliate sales are also great, especially if your blog is matured and trusted.

Once you start making money, reinvest it. But take it one day at a time. You won’t make a million dollars by tomorrow, in fact you probably won’t even make $1000 by the end of the month, but Rome wasn’t built in a day.

My older blog projects are starting to bring in some cash while my new ones are barely making anything. I guess that makes sense, but considering how aggressively I initially promoted my new blogs I was hoping I’d make a few bucks from them by now. As I mentioned before, I’m losing faith in my Blogger blogs and I’m thinking of focusing more on my older projects, which are now looking pretty good (relatively).

What are these older blogs I’ve had? They’re on their own domains in two very different niches. I’ve been working on one of them since mid-November of last year, and the other one since early May of this year. They are primarily affiliate blogs. I tried PPC ads, but it wasn’t proving very profitable. In the past two and half weeks I’ve pulled in over $60 from these blogs. Of that, about $30 are with one affiliate and I believe it’s hit the minimum payout. That means I’m actually going to get the money in my hands within the month.

I’ve worked in IM for over a year, and became especially focused in the last eight months or so. I’ve made money online before but I’ve never hit the minimum payout, meaning that the money is on hold. I’ve never been paid for this. Yet each sale, even when I’ve yet to hold the money in my hands, motivates me to continue.